Piles Redux

By Jon@Smalldog.com

In April of 2003, I wrote a Tech Tales article about Piles, what they were and what it meant. It was called “Piles of Files Everywhere?”

A rumored addition to OS X with the Panther build due later this year is “Piles.” Introduced and patented by Apple in 2001, Piles is a new way of organizing your files on your desktop.

Essentially, piles will be stacks of similar documents, piled on your desktop. Dragging your mouse to the pile will cause it to expand, enabling you to see all the individual files and documents, JPEGs, etc. in that specific pile.

Will this be an easier way to organize files and access them? Only time will tell. From what I have seen and read, and my feelings as a person who does not keep many documents on his desktop, I don’t know that this is a great time-saver. But for people whose desktops are a minefield of icons, it should help to clear up the mess and clutter.

This is just a rumor, and we will just have to wait and see what is in the next incarnation of the OS X operating system.”

Why now do I mention this? Apple in the past weeks have pdated and taken out a few more patents on the Piles filing system. From an article in Apple Insider we have, “Meanwhile, a recent Apple patent filing turned up by MacNN suggests that Apple has yet to abandon its “piles” software interface concept that it first conceived back in 1991.” Some good ideas need time to mature before they can be implemented in a useable way….